BEING BLACK AND BROWN, especially in this town, can be exhausting. Instead of feeling defeated, six artists came together to create an intentional, unapologetic space for people of color in Portland to connect, dance, and heal. At the intersection of art, entertainment, and social justice was born Y.G.B.—a collective that turns one year old this week and has made a wonderful habit of reveling in the beauty of melanin. I sat down with Natalie Figueroa, a Boricua from Chicago and one-sixth of the team behind Y.G.B., to talk vibes, community, and intersectionality.
After Figueroa and Vaughn Kimmons (who performs as Brown Alice) began the search for Portland clubs that played the sounds of their ’90s youth—house, hip-hop, and R&B—they quickly realized that something was missing. Though venues promised hip-hop nights on ads spattered with the faces (and bodies) of black women, the crowds and DJs were largely white.
“We’d go to these places and people would stare at us or mimic our dance moves. It was like being watched, but then ignored at the exact same time,” Figueroa says. “We wanted to create a space where all of the artists were black and brown and was explicit in who [the space] was for.” Now before y’all cry out reverse racism—which is not real—she continues, “While everyone is welcome, we needed to create a space where we could share our art, music, culture, and stories rather than letting somebody else talk for us.”